


Fade to Black

by buttheyrebrothers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 11:43:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6373405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttheyrebrothers/pseuds/buttheyrebrothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is stuck in a snowstorm somewhere in New England. He's alone and most likely about to freeze to death. </p><p>That's when he hears a familiar voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade to Black

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my amazing beta [Winchestersinthedrift](http://winchestersinthedrift.tumblr.com) :)  
> Written for the prompt: stuck somewhere due to a snowstorm

Dean _hates_ New England.  
  
He’s never been a fan of extreme temperatures, that’s for sure. But there’s also something about the abundance of snow, the big blank of sensory nothingness that makes his lips curl and his fingers tighten around the wheel. He dimly remembers a cabin in the woods somewhere in Connecticut; afternoons spent chasing Sammy through the snow-covered trees and building snowmen, snowball fights and lungs aching from the cold and their laughter. Winter back then felt different than it does now.  
  
Maybe it's the absence of sound and smell and color. Of warmth. It’s a sensation too familiar, too suggestive of his life these days, to be anything but discomforting.  
  
He wonders what Sam is doing, if the sun is shining in Palo Alto. Chances are it is. If he closes his eyes he can see the campus, lush green surrounded by old and majestic buildings. Sees students milling around, smiling and chatting easily with one another. There is one guy, almost a man, who stands out in the sea of unfamiliar faces. He’s laughing, with sparkling sunflower eyes and dimples carved deep into rosy cheeks. The most beautiful thing under the California sun.  
  
He tries not to think about that particular visit. It's like someone said _don't think of an elephant_.

The weather forecast predicted another eight inches of fresh snow this morning, on top of the twelve already there.  His baby bravely plows through the snow storm that started about twenty minutes ago but the visibility’s getting worse by the minute. For the first time he’s not sure he’s going to make it to the next town. He’s not even done thinking it when the back tires skid sideways on the icy road. His grip tightens on the wheel and he countersteers, instinct quick and practiced, but to no avail. It’s impossible to get a grip on those roads. The world spins, lurches. His guts are in his throat and then the horizon tilts on its axis and everything goes black.

When he opens his eyes again he doesn’t know where he is or how long he’s been out, his head blissfully empty for once. It starts to come back in bits and pieces. The snow. The icy road. Losing control and hitting the snow pile. He thinks he might be dead and that he’s not in heaven. For starters, it surely feels like hell. He’s disoriented, can’t make out more than a few hazy shades in the dark. His skin burns from the biting cold and his limbs feel sluggish, heavy and disconnected.

Also, there is no Sam.

“You might want to reconsider this,” says a very matter-of-fact sounding voice from his right.

“Jesus Christ!” He can’t be dead, then, not when his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest.

Sam lets out an inelegant snort. “Not quite. Just me. And you’re not dead, Dean. Stop being such a drama queen.”

Dean wants to glare at Sam in retaliation but he’s too busy drinking in the familiar face like a starving man. Sam looks exactly like he did three months ago. His skin has that bronze tone it always gets when he’s out in the sun for more than two hours. He looks good. Dean shouldn’t feel his heart constricting at the thought. That is exactly what he wanted for Sam, the reason he never left the car at his last visit. He’d seen how happy Sam was and decided to let him go.

 “Who’s being a drama queen? And if I’m not dead then why are you here? Huh?” Of course, even in the afterlife Sam would give him attitude.

Sam just shrugs like it doesn’t even matter. “Beats me, man. But let’s be logical. If you were dead, do you think you would hurt so bad or be so cold?”

He can only stare at Sam. Wonders whether his heaven could be Sam arguing with him about inane things and decides that yes, he would gladly take it. But yeah, Sam is right. The pain in his head is getting worse by the minute and he realizes he must have hit it on the steering wheel during impact. The cold is biting at the skin of his hands and face but his fingers and most of his toes have already started to numb. He aches all over, his muscles so stiff they’re not even properly shivering anymore. Maybe he’s really _not_ dead after all.

“Maybe you’re right,” Dean grudgingly admits. When he looks over at Sam he’s presented with his brother’s best _duh_ -face. “So, ok, you must be a hallucination.” It sounds more like a question but at this point he doesn’t care. The cold makes it hard to think.

“Seems like it.” It’s said almost cheerfully, like Sam is just happy to be here with Dean in the middle of nowhere, stranded in a snowstorm. He _must_ be a figment of Dean’s imagination, cause Sam hasn’t sounded like that in a long time.

“’m cold, Sammy.” As soon as the words leave his mouth he realizes it’s worse than that. The cold is piercing, burning his skin but the sensation is slowly fading along with everything else. A thought fights its way through the fog in his mind and tells him he should try to get warm, should try to crank up the heat. Anything. But he’s tired, brain fuzzy-thick, enough that the panic he should feel seems somehow far away.

“-ean! Hey, Dean, come on! Don’t you check out on me, man!” He’s ripped out of the stupor he’s started to sink into by Sam’s panicky voice. His brother’s eyes are a bit wild. Dean doesn’t understand the fear in them, just knows it’s wrong. He tries to lift his arm and reach over to Sam but he’s so far away and Dean’s arm is heavy, so heavy, like it’s filled with lead.

“Shhhh, ’s okay, Sammy, ’s okay,” he coos instead. His own voice sounds strange to him, slurred and thin. He tries to smile at his brother but he’s not sure if it works: he can’t feel his face anymore.

“No no _no_! Dean, please. I need you. I know you think I don’t, that I’m happy, but I need you to be safe. Can you do that for me, huh? I’m beggin’ you. Please, big brother.”

He has trouble remembering what’s happening. Sammy sounds so scared and he’s pleading with him. For what, he has no idea. Doesn’t matter.

“Always, lil’ brother.” His lips barely move and he’s not sure any sound makes it past them but Sam looks relieved so he must have heard him. K. Dean did good. Now that Sam looks better he’d really like to take a nap. Just a little one. Sam is here, he can take the first watch and then they can switch. Maybe talk a bit before. That’d be nice.

“Okay, listen Dean. I need you to take the candle out of the glove box. Light it. It’ll warm you until someone comes.” When he doesn’t react his brother shouts. “ _Goddammit_ jerk, open the goddamn glove box and light that fucking candle. Now!” He can’t remember the last time Sam’s been this angry at him. He tries but the memories run through his fingers like sand, only slower. He wonders why Sam doesn’t light the fucking candle himself, if he wants a girly candlelight dinner under the stars. What a bitch his brother can be.

“Because I’m just in your _head_!”

That makes Dean look up. He can tell that Sam’s visibly trying to calm down. Dean feels like it should seem strange that his hallucination would tell him it’s not real, that it’s only in his head. Then again, that _would_ be just like Sam.

“Listen, Dean. I know you’re cold and that you feel shitty. It’s because you’re _dying_ , idiot. And you can’t just leave me like that, okay? Dean, what would I, I mean…” Sam’s voice breaks and with it some of the lethargy that has Dean in its deadly grip. He’s freezing to death, goddammit. He needs to get warm but he doesn’t know how, it slipped his –.

The candle. Of course.

Reaching the glove box is a herculean effort. It’s not that his arm feels as heavy as it did minutes (or hours or days, he has no idea) before but that he doesn’t feel his limbs _at all_. Still, he pushes and pushes himself, hard enough that sweat would gather on his skin if he wasn’t so cold. Slowly, at a glacial pace, his arm creeps forward. Eons later his fingertips bump against the clasp. His eyes start to burn with relief and frustration together because he can’t open it. His fingers are like sticks, fucking _sticks,_ unbending and clumsy, and he can’t get it open and he’ll die alone in his car in fucking _New England_. Who will take care of his Sammy, he wonders, it’s _his_ job, _his_ responsibility, his, his, his.

 _Clack_.

The sound almost doesn’t register past the ringing in his ears but then the lid falls open.

“You did it Dean,” says a voice full of awe and when he turns his head he sees Sammy, little Sammy, with his chubby eight year old face beaming at him like he hung the moon and the stars.

“Now, hurry, light ‘em up.” His thirteen year old brother’s eyes warm his icy body with their hero worship. He reaches for the candle and cradles it in his numb hand.

“In the case of hypothermia, you lose your fine motor control as your muscles stiffen and your blood circulation slows because your blood is thickening like crankcase oil in a cold engine. _Matches_ next to the candle, dude. No way can you handle a lighter in that condition.” Sam’s seventeen and using his professor voice, as Dean chooses to call it. His face is still so young, gaunt because of his recent growth spurt and way too serious for a teenager. He’s too beautiful to look at for too long, so Dean rivets all his attention on finding those matches.

His eyes drop in new relief when he finds the rectangular shape. He can already feel the warmth of the flame before he even strikes a match, his body heavy on the soft covers of his bed. Sam’s body is a hot line pressed against his skin but then it’s searing, scorching his flesh and he tries to scramble away. Sam looks at him with a wounded expression, gaze hurt, betrayed. “You _promised_ , Dean. You promised you would light it.”

He opens his eyes to the dim car. There is no Sam, just a candle and a pack of matches in his stiff hand. He has it cradled against his chest -- the only reason he hasn’t dropped its precious contents -- but when he tries to make his hands cooperate and light the stupid thing his body refuses to listen.

That’s when another set of hands closes over his. He swears he can feel the heat radiating off them and together they manage to strike the match. The flame is scorching but he holds onto it, brings it to the wick. For a terrifying heartbeat nothing happens. He thinks, _that’s it_ , knows he doesn’t have the strength to light another one. A single tear gathers at the corner of his eye.

There’s never been anything better, never _will_ be anything better than the small flame that flickers, finally, over the candle in his hand.

He’s found an hour later by the mountain rescue service, which is scouring the area for broken down cars or accident victims. When they get him out his core temperature has dropped to eighty-five degrees and his pulse rate is at roughly thirty beats per minute. At the hospital they manage to warm him up again, slowly, to avoid cardiac arrest as his slowed heart picks up speed again. He gets to keep all of his limbs and is allowed to leave the hospital four days later.

They tell him he must have had a guardian angel. Dean knows better.

“Heya, Sammy.” It sounds raw to his own ears. He wants to blame it on almost freezing to death.

Sam’s voice is unusually high with surprise when he says, “Dean? Is everything alright?” As if the only time he’d call his little brother would be if something had happened. Which, okay, something did but that’s not the point.

“Sammy, you remember that time Dad almost froze to death during a hunt in Minnesota?” Dean tries to make it sound casual.

“Yeah, sure. His car broke down. Said it was one of the worst moments of his life. He made us promise to always have a candle in the car. Said even a tiny flame would give enough warmth in the enclosed space to keep us from freezing. Why are you asking?”

So Sam does remember. He knows, rationally, that he probably did, too. That Sam wasn’t actually there to save him with that freakish brain of his. That doesn’t change the warmth that floods him at Sam’s words.

“Nothing. Was just thinkin’ about it, y’know?” he says softly. He waits for Sam to laugh at him or to just hang up and go back to his new, normal life. He’s made his peace with it, he has. It feels like Sam came through for him that night in the car so he’ll give his little brother what he wants. Freedom. Happiness. A normal, apple pie life without his screwed-up family.

 “You sure you’re okay, Dean?” Sam sounds so worried. Like he can hear right through Dean’s bullshit.

He probably can.

“I'm golden, Sammy. Go back to your classes, geek boy. Catch you later.”

He ends the call and revs up the engine while Metallica’s _Fade to Black_ plays in the background.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also [on Tumblr](http://buttheyrebrothers.tumblr.com)! Say Hi :))


End file.
